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The Specialized Turbo: An Electric Bicycle With Scooterlike Speed

By Benjamin Preston June 28, 2013 6:00 amJune 28, 2013 6:00 am

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Specialized says the Turbo's tires are regular bicycle tires that can be changed with typical flat repair tools.Credit Specialized

Unless you live around the corner from your job, riding a bicycle to work is serious business. The die-hards seem not to care, either sloughing through the traffic on busy thoroughfares or duking it out with an equally intense rival: distance, which pits riders against fatigue and travel time.

I commute to work in Manhattan, so there’s no way I’d even consider driving. Sure, it could take as little as 20 minutes to get to work in a car, but then I’d have to worry about paying for tolls, parking and gas – easily $30 or more a day. No thanks. So like many others in my situation, buses, trains and bicycles are the way to go. Of course, if I ride a bicycle, particularly during summer or sloppy weather, I’m a mess by the time I get there.

I wouldn’t normally even think about riding an electric bike. My early-’80s Bianchi is light enough to lug up and down even the longest stairways, and electric bikes can be pretty heavy. But Specialized was letting journalists ride its newish electric assist Turbo in Central Park the other day, so I took one for a spin.

The questions that pop up when electric bicycles are the topic of discussion usually revolve around their feasibility as a realistic mode of transportation. As a culture, we are by no means finished with the personal automobile. But what about electric bikes? Are they better or worse than scooters? Is it more cost effective to buy a conventional bicycle? Is riding bicycles in the city even all that safe? All of that depends upon personal preference and situation. There’s no right answer for anyone. The only thing that anyone can say with conviction about electric bikes is that they’re probably less troublesome to drive in the city than are cars and trucks.

What’s so special about the Specialized Turbo, then? It’s fast. Federal law limits the power output of an electric bicycle’s motor to 750 watts (1 horsepower) and its speed to 20 miles per hour or less. The Turbo complies with European safety regulations, so Specialized has been selling it there since last year.

The company needed a team of lawyers to figure out how it fit into American safety standards before selling it here. But because the Turbo doesn’t have a throttle control – if you don’t pedal, the bike doesn’t go – it’s considered an electric assist bicycle under federal law, which isn’t limited by the 20 m.p.h. speed cap.

The assist, which has a torque sensor that picks up on pedal output, will match pedal pushing with a selectable amount of power up to 28 m.p.h. Faster than that, you’re on your own. Pedaling for all I was worth around Central Park’s loop road, I was able to get it up to 32 m.p.h. descending some of the bigger hills, but you can easily go that fast on a light road bike, too. But because it doesn’t really look all that much like an electric bike, the other cyclists you whiz past at speeds of more than 20 m.p.h. without appearing physically strained look at you as if wondering what sort of performance enhancing supplements you’ve been guzzling.

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The Turbo's battery includes a battery life indicator and a magnetic charger connector.Credit Benjamin Preston

The engineers who were so proudly showing off their speedy creation the other day said they’d like to market it as an alternative to a scooter. The Turbo weighs 50 pounds – part of that being the 5-pound battery and another part being the 14-pound rear wheel – but by throwing an arm over the top tube forward of the seat and grasping the seat tube, it’s light enough to be carried up and down stairs.

The Turbo goes as fast as slower scooters, but doesn’t use any gas. The battery is removable with a key, or it can be charged on the bike. The rear wheel comes off by popping off one connector and removing the axle through-bolt with an Allen key. That brings the weight down to 31 pounds, which many people could throw onto a car’s roof racks if they had to. Some scooters may have a longer range, but there aren’t many that can go on top of your car.

“We started from the ground up; it’s not a standard bicycle and it’s not a standard electric bike,” said Amber Lucas, a mechanical engineer who worked on the design. “Everything was based on this idea that we’re cyclists, we want to go fast, we want to have the wind in our ears and we don’t want to hear the motor.”

The Turbo has seven normal bicycle speeds and four different electric assist modes, selectable with a switch on the handlebar. Turbo mode gives the rider 100 percent assist, and it is a blast. You touch the pedal, and the thing jolts forward – a wide grin or a grimace of terror is the likely result. It’s not long before you’re cruising at 25 m.p.h. without putting any effort into it.

Eco mode allows the rider to select power assist from 10 to 90 percent. That way, you get some juice, but the battery is supposed to last longer. Coast mode gives no assist, and since the Turbo is heavier than a conventional bike, it can take a while to get started and a little more leg-generated energy to keep going.

Then there’s regeneration mode, which turns the 250-watt motor into a battery-charging generator on downhill runs, or converts the Turbo into an exercise bike if you’re that sort of masochist. If the battery is at 20 percent charge or less, the bike’s computer automatically puts in into eco mode, which I was told by the engineers has a default setting of 30 percent assist.

Many electric cars have shown the world that it can be difficult to know how long a battery will actually last until you use it in real world conditions. Ms. Lucas said she had been using a Turbo for her daily commute for a while now, and last year, that meant a 30-mile round trip while she was working at the Specialized office in Switzerland. She said it was a hilly commute, but with the bicycle in eco mode, she could usually make it to work and back on a single charge. Specialized says the battery can be fully charged in 2.5 hours.

My takeaway from this ride was that the Turbo is a quiet, fun-to-ride sports bicycle that allows its rider to stretch the range of nonelectric bicycles. That could be seen as a boon for long-distance bicycle commuters. There’s a definite giggle factor involved in riding the thing, too.

There are certainly drawbacks, though. First, you can ride at 25 m.p.h. all day (or until the battery dies) without feeling like you’ve done anything physical. That might be a plus for some, but many cyclists are into feeling the burn, so to speak.

Then there’s the price. It costs $5,900. That might sound reasonable to someone who would spend as much or more on a fancy mountain or road bike. In my case, I have two cars, a few bicycles and a bunch of furniture that doesn’t even come close to that amount all together. I’m pretty sure there are others like me who think that awesome cruiser/sports bike or no, that’s a lot to pay for something that can be locked to a bike rack.

Being an inveterate cheapskate, I’m still not ready to give up up my 100 percent pedal-powered bicycle/cheap used car/public transit melange of transportation options. It cost me nothing to acquire the bike (I have nice friends) and I can replace it for a couple of hundred dollars if it’s stolen or destroyed in an accident. But for someone with the means (and ability to justify the price), the Turbo would probably be a pretty enjoyable way to get around.

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The Turbo's electric motor will assist the rider until the bike reaches a speed of 28 m.p.h.Credit Specialized

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